


if you never shoot, you'll never know

by hamiltrashed



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Hand Jobs, M/M, Rickyl Writers' Group, Rickyl Writers' Group Bingo 2016, Rickyl Writers' Group February 2016 Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 01:31:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6136701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamiltrashed/pseuds/hamiltrashed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just one unexpected touch suddenly changes everything between Rick and Daryl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you never shoot, you'll never know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BriannaNicole](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BriannaNicole/gifts).



> This was written (super last minute) for the RWG February 2016 challenge (with the subject of first kisses/first times, etc), and also fulfills my 'first time' Bingo square for the RWG Bingo. Thanks to my darling beta, Michelle_A_Emerlind for taking the time to beta for me as always. Gifted to BriannaNicole in return for the lovely poem she gifted me, and for our awesome conversations! <3

Neither of them quite realise when it happens - the first unexpected touch. Of all the times they’ve touched each other before this, each had been predictable, easily explained. One hand clapped on a shoulder, a sharp, friendly slap on the back now and then, a hip bumped against someone’s side as a signal. Every single one was carefully crafted, if only subconsciously, to communicate the current permissible amount of brotherly, familial affection and no more. So it takes a long moment for either of them to realise that this boundary has been breached when it ensues.

It happens when they decide to take a breather during a run, when they are sitting side by side, backs against a dusty jewellery counter of a long-abandoned department store. One of Rick’s hands is on the floor between them, palm up, while Daryl eats candy pilfered from a broken vending machine outside, and Rick studies a men’s paisley shirt on a nearby rack, wondering how anything like that could have been cleared by a clothing designer and allowed to exist. He doesn’t really _notice_ when Daryl’s fingers start tracing along the lines of his open palm, doesn’t notice when they circle the center and tap an uncertain rhythm against his skin, doesn’t notice when they briefly trail along his wrist and dance back up to his fingertips. It all feels normal until it doesn’t. 

It only occurs to Rick that something is different when he feels a sudden pinch of arousal deep in his belly, an unexpected little twinge of desire when Daryl’s touch becomes so light that it almost tickles, and the feeling goes straight to his groin as if there’s a direct line somewhere inside between his hands and his cock. And then he looks up at Daryl, Daryl looks over at him, and comically pauses mid-chew when he seems to realise what he’s been doing, glancing down at his hand on top of Rick’s and pulling away like he’s been burned.

He swallows the candy hard and coughs a little, eyes going wide. “Shit,” he mutters, “sorry, I didn’t mean to, uh. Yeah.” He looks away, and not for the first time, Rick feels the miniscule amount of air between them thicken with tension, an abrupt sense of lust edged with a certain kind of devotion Rick has never felt toward anyone else.

And there are moments when you know that time is standing still just for you, when you know you have a small window of opportunity to act, when you know that if you miss it, it may never come again. And this is one of those moments for Rick; out of nowhere, the impulse to kiss Daryl rises up in him so strongly, as if just this moment of unanticipated contact between them is enough for them to pass from friends to something else. And maybe it is. Despite the fleeting feeling of fear in his chest, Rick has always subscribed to the idea that you don’t know if you don’t try. And so he tries.

He lifts his hand from the floor to Daryl’s face, pulls his head around back toward him, sees the surprise in Daryl’s eyes when he leans in and kisses him. Only, this is not a kiss. For all intents and purposes, it can be termed as one, but it’s more than that. It’s a claiming. It’s as though reality falls away and is sucked into a vacuum, and suddenly all that Rick knows is the pressure of Daryl’s mouth on his, the way his lips part for Rick instantly like they’d always been waiting for this, the way Daryl’s tongue tastes sweet like chocolate and peanut butter. And with one hand on Daryl’s cheek, body turned against his, Rick instantly asserts whatever rights Daryl will allow him to this and everything else for the rest of his goddamn life.

Rick expects that at some point, they will stop kissing and talk about this, or at least look at each other long enough to come to some kind of non-verbal agreement about everything. But there’s barely a break between the first kiss and the tenth, and only long enough to gasp for air. Daryl manhandles Rick onto his lap (and Rick makes a mental note to examine later how much he enjoys _that_ particular move), continues to kiss Rick, letting his hands slide up under the bottom of Rick’s button down. 

Rick tries not to think about how much his knees will hurt later, digging into the floor like this on either side of Daryl’s thighs, because oh god, it’s worth it. It’s worth it just to feel Daryl’s hands on him, thumbs tracing along his hipbones just under the waist of his jeans, to feel the way the cotton falls away from his chest when Daryl reaches up and unbuttons him bit by bit. His hands roam freely then, and Daryl only pulls his mouth away from Rick’s to breathlessly kiss along his neck, to bite at Rick’s collarbone, to lick up into the hollow of his throat.

Rick’s hips thrust helplessly forward like an invitation, and Daryl gets the hint, nuzzles against Rick’s chest, tongue swiping across one nipple and then the other, fingertips trailing along his belly until they reach the button on Rick’s jeans. One quick tug and it’s open, and Rick blatantly (and loudly) moans at the sudden release of pressure against his cock when Daryl pulls down his zipper. 

He hasn’t been touched like this in so long and he thinks that the last time he was, it wasn’t even close to this good. Daryl is attentive to every bit of him that he can reach, and seems to know just how and where Rick likes his hands and mouth the most. Rick isn’t proud of the noise he makes when Daryl’s hands trace along his hips and move around to the small of his back, slowly moving downward to push Rick’s jeans and boxers down over his ass. For a second, Rick worries he’s about to embarrass himself when Daryl grabs at his ass, because when his cock springs free of his boxers, hard as ice and twice as wet, he’s already feeling the exquisite pull of orgasm starting to build in him. 

Rick doesn’t think it’s just because he hasn’t had this in what feels like a million years. It’s that of course, but it’s also the mere _idea_ of Daryl touching him, let alone the actual thing. And when Rick speaks for the first time in all of this, it’s only to beg for more. “Please,” he whispers, hips twitching forward again, cock straining and desperate for Daryl’s grasp. “Please, Daryl.”

Rick notes the way his voice already sounds broken, husky, greedy with need. And he knows then that all Daryl would ever need to do is ask for what he wants, and Rick would give and give until he had nothing left. But that’s another kind of vow to make on another kind of day; in this moment, all Rick wants to do is enjoy this sudden change in status quo, because it’s one that won’t require any real adjustment on his part. In the exact moment he thinks this is unexpected, another part of him says _fated_.

Daryl curls one hand firmly around Rick’s cock, the other lingering at his ass, and Rick nearly falls against him in his desperate effort to get more. It doesn’t matter if Rick takes time now and then to hide out in his cell and give himself the attention he sorely lacks, one hand in his own lap, the other gripping the metal edges of the bunk hard while he fucks into his own fist. Because it cannot compare to being touched by someone else, to have Daryl stroking him off and tugging him forward into a bruising kiss. 

It takes Rick a moment to shake himself out of the selfishness of it all, and he clumsily fumbles with Daryl’s pants while he tries to keep pushing himself forward into Daryl’s hand. Daryl arches up into him when Rick starts touching him, and Rick does fall forward onto him then, pressing him into the counter while the two of them positively writhe like hungry animals against one another. 

It doesn’t take very long. Rick is pretty sure there’s a moment where he’s sixteen again, because he imagines the tight heat of Daryl’s hand as Daryl himself, imagines what it’ll be like when he gets to fuck Daryl, has a half second of imagining Daryl fucking _him_ , and it’s all over just like that. He comes in Daryl’s hand and all over his thigh, thinking somewhere through the haze of orgasm that he’s probably gonna have to wash Daryl’s clothes to make up for that one.

Rick presses his face into Daryl’s neck, body trembling, laughing sheepishly and gasping, “Sorry, didn’t mean to… couldn’t help it.” 

Daryl gives a low rumble of a laugh and mutters back, “Don’t stop.” Rick would never. Daryl’s hips thrust upward into Rick’s hand, and he draws Rick into another kiss, only pulling away to moan when he comes all over Rick’s fingers. Rick doesn’t let up until Daryl pushes his hand away. “Okay, y’can stop _now_ , holy shit.”

Rick chuckles and sits back on Daryl’s lap, and partly because he doesn’t think he should add to the mess on Daryl’s pants (and partly because he really wants to do it), he sucks his fingers clean of Daryl’s come while Daryl watches him, slumped down against the counter and breathing hard. 

“Got come all over me, y’know,” Daryl says after a while, eyes on Rick as he licks the last drops from his own skin.

Rick grins at him. “What, you want me to lick that up too?”

Daryl groans, cock twitching helplessly at Rick’s words. “It’d be hot, but no. C’mon, help me up.” 

Rick barely manages to climb to his feet, still weak at the knees, bracing himself against the counter and giving Daryl a hand. “We gonna talk about all this?” Rick asks, but he’s sure that no, they most definitely aren’t.

Daryl confirms this by shaking his head. “Nothin’ we gotta talk about,” he says, zipping himself up, then pulling Rick forward by the lapel of his still open shirt and tugging his jeans up, buttoning and zipping them. “Think we both know this was a long time comin’.”

Rick wiggles his fingers at Daryl. “Oh, it was _coming_ alright.” 

Daryl blushes and elbows Rick in the ribs. “Shut up,” he mutters and starts toward the door. “Let’s go, gotta get back.”

Rick jumps overturned clothing racks and displays and catches up with Daryl. “In a hurry, Dixon?”

Daryl pauses and gives him a blazing look that stops Rick dead in his tracks, then shrugs. “Gonna wanna fuck you soon and I think it’s better there’s a bed involved. Otherwise I’m gonna take you over the hood of that car. Unless you want it that way?” There’s a hint of a smirk on his lips and he turns and starts walking back to the car again. And for the first time since all of this began, Rick doesn’t think he’s ever been happier to follow after anybody.

**Author's Note:**

> Title borrowed from the song "Robbers" by my fave band, The 1975.


End file.
